The religious faith was firm in his mind by the source of...

The religious faith was firm in his mind by the source of education that Allah is one and (S) is His Messenger, and then Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman and then His Eminence, Ali (a.s.), then Muawiyah, then Yazeed, and then six Caliphs of Bani Umayyah, and then all remaining Imams including Imam Mahdi (a.j.). The most prominent woman is ‘A’ysha and after her, Lady Fatima (s.a.).

After this instruction and after clearing the Intermediate exams, the writer came from Bhagalpur to Patna and was admitted in Patna College and separated from Maulana Sayyid Muhammad Gul Nurullah. There he started taking religious lesson from Maulavi Abdul Karim. He was also of Hanafite religion, but he was not convinced of Yazeed’s Caliphate and followed the Sunni religion but did accord importance to Yazeed after Muawiyah.

Anyhow, his belief did not affect me, because I believed Yazeed as a rightful person, according to the instructions of Maulavi Sayyid Gul Muhammad. When the writer was nineteen, he got a chance to witness a religious disturbance. The writer’s uncle, Nawab Munshi Sayyid Najmuddin, also lived on the other side of the same house. As mentioned above, his uncle was of Sufi religion and many times Sufi people gathered in his house making nice mystic jokes everyday.

But one day by chance they mentioned Muawiyah Ibn Abi Sufyan. Since the uncle did not have any devotion to Muawiyah, he delivered a speech, from which no dignity of Muawiyah could be derived. This was unbearable to the Sufi, who was one of our neighbors. He became extremely irritated and said that if you refuse the excellence of Muawiyah you have forgone the Sunni faith. What is the difference between deniers of excellence and a Shia? Other Sufi gentlemen present there also supported him.

But the writer’s uncle remained adamant in his opinion and due to this the Sufi group broke up. Not only this, their friendship declined and both parties began to debate in writing about the excellence of Muawiyah or lack of it. At last Shah Ali Habib of Pahelwari Sharif got information about it and he opposed Sayyid Munshi Najmuddin. First he tried to make him understand but in vain. Nawab Munshi remained same as he was before.

Then Shah Ali wrote a powerful book entitled Uswatul Hasana in praise of Ahlul Sunnat faith and all the beliefs were explained according to their faith, which clarified that no Sunni can refuse to believe in the excellence of Muawiyah.